My Pink Baby Shower!

Baby A is coming!

That was the hashtag that my gang pagar sekolah apparently created for the surprise event. Boy oh boy, it was definitely a surprise!

Since surprise baby showers were a tradition in our group, I knew that a baby shower was coming. But I did not expect for the baby shower to be held that soon! (I was at 31 weeks then!) Hubby pun pandai berkomplot with the gang; he made up a story about an invite to a birthday party. Siap we bought and wrapped a present lagi for the fictional birthday boy. *chuckles*

So anyway, he drove us to the venue (The Saujana Hotel Subang) and then dropped me off at the entrance on the pretext of not making me walk so far from the parking lot. So while I was walking into the lobby of the hotel, I suddenly had this suspicion that this was all a planned gimmick. Why? Because I didn’t see any signage to a so called birthday party, and honestly; I don’t know any of Hubby’s friends who would splurge on a birthday party for their son in a hotel! The minute Hubby walked in, I immediately pounced on him and demanded to see the invite. Nampak muka dia panic while he tried to dodge the question, and insisted that I followed him. I on the other hand, refused to budge. And to my surprise, he actually walked away! Ok sah sah something fishy was going on.

After waiting for a few minutes, suddenly he returned with one of the gang pagar girls. *giggles* Surprise tak menjadi! After a few minutes of persuasion (I still refused to budge cos I wasn’t mentally prepared, nor dressed for a baby shower!) I eventually followed them.

The venue they picked was fantabulous! It was a quiet corner in Ti Chen by the lake, and the whole area was cordoned just for us. The table was immaculately decorated in pink floral flowers, with a beautiful cake and diaper cake to top it all. They even dressed me up in a sash and a floral crown! Everyone came dressed in white and pink with matching floral crowns. I don’t think I can ever do justice to the deco in words, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

Yours truly with a beautiful floral crown and sash. Oh you can call me Booties too! *giggles*

Beautiful signage, which is currently hanging in Baby AY's room.

Flowers everywhere. That beautiful floral 'A' will be following me to the hospital as deco! Cake and diaper cake lovingly made by members of the gang pagar.

The placemats.

Princess A is coming!

Matching personalized doorgifts.

Our quiet corner.

Setup for the cake cutting session at the end of the baby shower.

After lunch, we moved on to games. After planning two baby showers for the gang pagar, I knew that we had played most of the games suggested online. Hence I was very intrigued on the choices of games that they had in mind. It turned out that they focused more on word games rather than activity games. Which was quite a blessing because doing physical activities while lugging around nearly 20kgs of extra weight around is no joke, ok!

Some of the word games we played. They were quite tough!

We wrapped up the afternoon with a group photo session. Despite not being really dressed for a baby shower (I was supposed to be decked in pink too!) I managed to blend in by hiding behind some bouquet of flowers. *chuckles*

Hiding my tummy behind a bouquet of flowers.

The girls!

Everyone in pink, except me of course.

Posing with our floral crowns.

One with the master decorators!

Gang wefie.

Cutting the beautiful two tier cake.

Selfies.

Last photo by the lake.

Thank you girls for planning such a lavish event for me. I feel so loved!

Farewell January

Oh my, this blog has certainly accumulated some cobwebs! Sorry peeps, still adjusting to my new role and this whole sleeping early business (cos Ian has to wake up early for kindy) is shifting the entire household's sleeping pattern. Hence zero time to blog! (The only reason why I'm blogging today is because it is a public holiday.)

Speaking about Ian, it has been one FULL month (no ponteng, ok!) but he still doesn't like school! The first thing he says to anyone, in the morning, is "I don't want to go (to) school!" And he keeps chanting the same mantra all throughout the car ride to kindy. *rolls eyes* Bila lah nak adapt nie Ian??? But I guess I should learn to count my blessings because earlier in the month he would cling to my neck, blouse, pants - anything within reach, and wail pitifully. Nowadays it's just merengek with some amount of drama tears (alah setitik dua jer) then he stops immediately after I leave the room.

Once, I was driving him to school, and he exclaimed; "When I say don't want, go back!!!" (Must have been pretty exasperated cos I kept driving even though he said he didn't want to go to school!)

Crying in class. I even tried to 'buy' him by bringing him to 7-11 before school, but I guess the joke's on me cos after he went 'shopping' he said, "Can you take me home now, Mummy?" Ppfffttt

Aiden on the other hand, is loving the whole sleeping early thing. Why? Cos he gets away from mummy-issued homework. By the time he finishes school homework, it's already time for bed. I haven't had the time to properly get him into the studying rhythm, but need to do so soon since he'll be having his exams in March. Just yesterday, he told me that he had to go on stage during perhimpunan. I thought it was because he did well or something. Rupanya the discipline teacher was lecturing the kids about ensuring their hair is short and Aiden was made as an example of rambut panjang. *chuckles* Ok definitely need to get Aiden's hair in check during this long weekend!

Recently, we enrolled the boys into swimming class. Well, a re-enrollment for Aiden but a new one for Ian. Similar like his elder brother, Ian is terrified of water. Zero water confidence! I guess the plan backfired because in his first class, the coach forced Ian to jump into the water (deep pool, mind you). I didn't quite agree with his method but I didn't want to make a scene. He was crying, scared shit-less at that point. Memang kesian. After that class, Ian completely freaked out and refused to go anywhere near the water - we actually had to cancel his enrollment. Until now, even at kindy he refuses to go near the ankle deep swimming pool. *sigh* Anak Air, if you're reading this, please revisit your coaching methods for beginners. Learn to assess each child differently. Some children just cannot be forced to conquer their fear of water in the very first class.

Ian's first (and last) class!

Aiden on the other hand, has conquered his fear and actually won a few medals in a recent swimming competition! Granted, he was placed in the junior category due to his age, but I'm just so happy that he loves the water now. He has certainly come a long way - from refusing to let water wet his hair nor trickle down his face - to this!

Congratulations Aiden, on winning silver and bronze! Super proud of you!!

Enough about the kids! Work wise, I think I'm getting there (I think)! It's definitely a mind shift, having to be less of an individual contributor but more of a leader cum manager. Managing people is not easy. Sometimes, in meetings, I feel like people are expecting me to share words of wisdom or something. Stress! To de-stress, I would then have lunch with my Upstream peeps; the people I grew up with all throughout my initial working life. Work involves a lot of traveling - I think throughout January I was traveling almost every week. Even in the plane I was turning on my laptop to reply to emails. *crazy* Next week I'm traveling again but this time I'm taking the kids too. Ponteng sekolah lah, sekali sekala. Other than traveling, I had to attend a lot of corporate dinners in January too, to the point that I was running out of muslimah-compliant dinner dresses. Thank god Zalia on Zalora ships quite quickly!

Folks in Downstream dress differently too! We seem to loveeeeee our pecten embellished shirts. This picture has garnered so many comments on my Instagram. Go check it out to get the joke! 

Due to traveling and long hours of work, I haven't seen the gang pagar sekolah for eons! From what used to be daily lepak sessions, to sekali seminggu pun susah nak jumpa. But so glad that recently we took the opportunity to have lunch together (just us girls!) to celebrate a baby shower and a double birthday celebration. Of course, yours truly was in charge of the deco and I also offered to make macarons for door gifts (instead of the cake!) I'm sure you've seen some photos on Instagram, but I promise I'll try to pen a specific post just for that event!

The pink and white deco for the day.

Still missing a few more, but so glad we took the time to enjoy our lunch outing!

One with the glowing mummy-to-be. I swear, there was literally a fan blowing into my hair, hence the rambut macam iklan shampoo shot.

Okay, that's all from me peeps - a rundown of January. I'll try to catch up on blog posts soon. (Operative word here, is try!) *chuckles*

Thanks for reading!

Raya 2016 - Part 4!

So this is Part 4 (and my final post) of Syawal. In keeping up with the theme of cramming everything and everyone that weekend, we invited people over to our house that Sunday!

In the morning we had my in-laws and their extended families. We decided to do a repeat of the Breakfast Aidilfitri we did last year (you can read about it here). I wanted to keep it simple and mess-free; so since Nasi Lemak Turbo is a good friend of mine, I pre-ordered 15 packets of nasi lemak, with ayam goreng berempah and their famous sambal sotong. Hubby then supplemented those with roti canai and nasi dagang, while I made some homemade buttermilk pancake batter so guests could make their own pancakes on our electric griddle.

The spread in our dry kitchen that day.

Scrumptious nasi lemak and nasi dagang wrapped in banana leaf.

Seri muka and talam durian. Roti canai presented on banana leaves that came from our garden! Buttermilk pancake batter in the background.

My handsome cook. (Bagi chan lah puji sikit... rindu time time offshore nie.) *giggles*

Check out our latest pets at home. Three tortoises that have grown so much since they arrived at our home barely six months ago.

We had quite an intimate breakfast that morning. My in-laws even invited my sister-in-law's wedding planner over so that we could finalize the details for the wedding. (October is going to be a crazy month for me!) After breakfast, we even had time for a photo shoot in the garden.

So apparently there is this new trend in town, where instead of taking still photos or videos, you do a still video instead. Therefore one has to stay still all the time, suspended in motion, while the videographer walks all around the scene making it seem like a 360deg atmosphere shot. Easier said than done, really! Hubby cracked jokes (which made our noses flare up in giggle suppression), wind blew our clothes around, and a darn butterfly even flew into the shot! *chuckles*

See how happy I was holding a broom?

Still photo with my sister-in-laws. Wearing a recycled baju raya from The Calice.

Hindustan style at our front lawn.

After they left, we had my ID contractor and his family over for tea. Remember that future renovation that I mentioned in a previous post? Well, should be happening soon, insyaAllah. (Oil price, we need you to stand strong!)

Later that night, we had Aiden's ex-kindergarten mates over for dinner. The Real Kids mummy-hood is still as zealous as ever, despite our kids being in different schools this year. One of them is heading for greener pastures overseas, so we thought it would be a good idea to have everyone together for one last time before they left. We did this potluck style, so all I had to do was make the food that they brought look pretty in my glassware. (Oh, I did buy satay though!)

See how I made takeaway pizza look so good? *giggles* Satay Kajang from the R&R at Elmina.

Yummy mee sup with meatballs! My maid said it tasted like bakso. Put a generous dash of sambal kicap... yum!

Selfies in the kitchen.

Waiting for one more to arrive, and missing two more! I was wearing a modern kurung from Deir.

It was amazing to see how the kids easily bonded with each other despite being apart in different schools for over half a year. It was so seamless, they literally jumped into conversation the minute they met. Takde malu malu shy shy. 

Kids were running everywhere, upstairs... downstairs. Meanwhile, the 'responsible' parents *chuckles* were too busy enjoying themselves eating and chit chatting. Since it was raining outside, we couldn't open the patio up to make more space, so in the end everyone kinda crowded around the dining table. I think it was at this point that both Hubby and I realized that we needed a bigger dining hall!

We couldn't squeeze 5 couples in! Check out my 'instant' daughter, so cute with a bow in a hair *smiles*

And another photo with Hubby, kain pelekat and all.

The ladies. Wish Erma and Nely were with us!

Our antics - posing for photos and then vetting through them. Memang tak ingat anak.

Anak pun tak ingat kat mak bapak. Love this photo of Ian balancing precariously while peering curiously at the iPad.

Candid pose while the kids were busy watching TV.

Mommies and daughters.

So many paparazzi!

And that marked the end of Syawal, well for me at least. Bring on Zulkaedah already! 

Nasi Lemak Turbo, Denai Alam

Our ministers frequently preach some pretty incredulous things. For instance, that whole drama about "working two jobs" to cover the escalating costs of living, that happened sometime late last year. (And what a backlash it sparked!) But I guess, we must take it all in good stride. If you can juggle two jobs, why not? (Mine is blogging. Haha kidding kidding... trust me, I'm making peanuts so far!)

Which is why, I am especially proud of this friend of mine, who has the guts to juggle a day job and run a food truck at night. Selling nasi lemak! Nasi Lemak Turbo, to be exact. Can you imagine how tiring it is to cook the sambal, marinate the chicken and prepare the condiments - especially after a long day at work?

Nasi Lemak Turbo, in Denai Alam.

And... you must give her credit for the cheeky (but oh so effective) advertising. The banner boasts about their fluffy rice - using only the best basmathi, a whole boiled egg - gerenti basuh, grade A anchovies dibuang kepala - gerenti tak jadi pelupa and sambal made from premium quality udang kering. Not only that - top notch spices, fresh chicken (delivered daily) and the finest oil for frying, including zero Abang Aji!

The menu.

The various condiments. The sambal is the bomb!

Can you believe that this used to be an ambulance? Her very nimble-fingered husband worked single-handedly to transform this into a food truck, including the wiring to install air-conditioning, lights and electrical points for the deep fryer.

What about the nasi lemak? You may think that I am biased, but trust me I am not. Last week, we had the nasi lemak three days in a row. And each day, as I arrive at the food truck just after work, there is always a long queue. They've had to resort to only doing take-aways, because they couldn't cope with the sheer amount of people turning up looking for seats for dine-in.

The sambal is just the way I like it - not spicy. Since it is not spicy, I use a lot of sambal with each mouthful, so I recommend buying extra sambal to go. The rice is extremely fluffy and flavourful, so if you're not on a diet, get some nasi tambah too! The chicken is marinated to perfection, and since it is deep fried at location, it is really crispy. The whole egg is too much for me, so I usually give it to Aiden who is crazy over eggs.

This is Set A - Nasi Lemak Ayam Goreng Berempah.

Our first visit at opening night.

The kids actually went into the food truck! Check out Ian, attempting a peace sign. *giggles*

Soooooo... if you're ever in the Denai Alam area, this is definitely a must try. They are located just beside Bank Islam. If you do go, tell the owner that you are a reader of Lizzieasamummy. You never know, you might get some extra sambal with your order! *chuckles*

Nasi Lemak Turbo

Denai Alam, beside Bank Islam

Open 6pm-830pm, weekdays only

Closed on weekends